


heartsong

by moonlitdrive



Category: ASTRO (Band)
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, if you didn't expect side binu from me you don't know me, tw for illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24455785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlitdrive/pseuds/moonlitdrive
Summary: Sanha's sick. Jinwoo fusses.
Relationships: Park Jinwoo | Jin Jin/Yoon Sanha
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	heartsong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lirriel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirriel/gifts).



> this is a sort of canon au where they didn't have a comeback just after golden week, and the world isn't in pandemic crisis. you could also arguably say it's in the same universe as xmas binu lol. just suspend reality for ~2800 words :D

[02:45:43] Sanha: hyung will you bring me a glass of water

[02:45:56] Sanha: and a wet towel

[02:46:21] Jinjin-leader-hyung: On it

It’s the golden week, which means the company has officially given them four whole days off. The rest have gone home to be with their families, but Sanha has the flu that he caught from Jinwoo who had it just a few days prior, so the two of them are spending their precious holiday in the dorm.

He tucked Sanha in (or more like made sure he went to bed at a reasonable time) hours ago, but Jinwoo also knows full well the sleepless exhaustion and bone-deep full-body aches that come with having the flu, so he isn’t surprised to get a text for help in the wee hours of the morning. (He also isn’t surprised that Sanha knows he’s still awake. They usually spend late nights gaming together online, which eventually turned into late nights chatting about the game, which eventually turned into late nights just… chatting. It’s been really nice.)

Jinwoo fetches a glass of water, then dampens a tea towel under the tap and wraps a handful of ice cubes in it. He also grabs a couple Tylenols and then heads down the hall to the room Sanha shares with Myungjun and Minhyuk.

(As soon as their youngest was taken ill, MJ and Minhyuk grabbed their bedding and announced they’d be having a “sleepover” in the hall til they were allowed to go home for their holiday. That really meant they were going to take the chance to watch anime on Netflix until both of them passed out, but it was also them giving Sanha a place to recuperate in peace without worrying he was going to pass it to either of them. Earlier when it was Jinwoo who had the flu, Bin just spent four nights straight in Dongmin’s tiny closet of a room with absolutely zero complaints. He regularly spends about half his nights there anyway. This time he just had an excuse.)

The room is dark when he enters, save for a shaft of moonlight coming in through the window as well as the bluish-white glow of Sanha’s phone screen. He isn’t even really looking at it, and it just lays there in his hand, which is laying limp on the bed as he stares unseeingly at the ceiling. It hurts Jinwoo to see it.

“I’ve brought your water and some medicine,” he murmurs, lingering at the door.

Sanha sighs ever so softly, a barely audible breath of air in the silence that’s punctuated only by the low hum of the air conditioner. “Thanks,” he whispers, struggling to sit up.

Jinwoo rushes to help him, or at least as fast as the glass of water in his hand will allow. It sloshes a little, and he looks guiltily at Sanha’s face, but the younger doesn’t seem to notice through the haze of his fever.

“I can’t sleep,” Sanha says tiredly.

Jinwoo hums in sympathetic agreement and passes him the water, letting him take a few sips before handing over the pills. “The flu does that,” he soothes, resting the back of his hand against the side of Sanha’s neck to check the temperature.  _ Boiling _ , he notes with a frown, and he sets about dabbing at Sanha’s neck and forehead with the cold towel.

Sanha makes soft noises of complaint at how cold and wet it is, but it’s more for show than anything. He still leans into Jinwoo’s touch as the older presses the cloth methodically across his collarbones, gently cooling the aching fire under his skin.

Eventually the towel starts to grow warm. Jinwoo motions for Sanha to lay down again, but the younger reaches for his wrist with a feverishly hot hand.

“Don’t go away yet,” Sanha says softly, his voice tinged with unease. “I feel better if you’re here.”

Jinwoo’s heart  _ aches _ . “I’ll get a fresh towel and come back,” he promises, even as his body prepares to grow roots and stay right by Sanha’s bedside until the younger recovers and long after that too.

Sanha nods after a long second and Jinwoo clambers to his feet. It’s the quickest trip he’s ever taken to the kitchen and back but this time he brings a little basin of ice water along as well, so he won’t have to leave again so soon.

He settles down on the ground next to Sanha’s mattress, grabbing Myungjun’s pillows and comforter off the nearby bunk to make himself a little nest. (There’s a bunk bed on the other end of the room to save space, but otherwise they’ve just got thick mattresses. It’s no sacrifice in comfort and anyway shelling out for four other bedframes wasn’t in their moving budget.)

A low whine tells him Sanha’s still not asleep, which doesn’t surprise him. He wrings out the towel so it’s not dripping wet and folds it neatly into a little rectangle, gently brushing Sanha’s fringe back and resting the cloth on his forehead.

“Sing to me,” Sanha whispers, his eyes shut.

“I can’t sing,” Jinwoo defends with a low laugh, but that’s only a half-truth and they both know it.

As a group of musical artists they’ve all taken vocal lessons. Minhyuk’s a rapper too but it’s no secret that he’s got one hell of a set of pipes on him. Jinwoo’s always part of their little acapella skits too, and he’s not always the baritone either. But he always plays up the comedy when they egg him to sing, never really letting himself put too much effort into it in case he can’t match up to the rest. It’s hard to even dare to sing when he’s surrounded by voices like their vocal prodigy Myungjun and versatile Bin, dulcet-toned Sanha and even Dongmin who’s improved in leaps and bounds since they started. So more often than not he just jokes around and half-shouts into the mic with a grin on his face before handing the mic off to someone else.

“Can too,” Sanha responds, but there’s no fight in his words. The illness has taken all the bits that make him Sanha and left him a pale ghost of what he once was. Jinwoo knows it’s just temporary and Sanha will be his endearingly insolent self again before they know it, but the way he sounds so empty makes Jinwoo willing to do anything to fill him back up.

He hums a few bars. The soft, low tone of his voice carries startlingly far in the empty room, and he almost doesn’t continue, but Sanha’s expectant silence spurs him on.

This is a song Jinwoo’s been messing with on and off for the past few months. It’s quiet, a ballad, and he’s given the lyrics a vague story to twine around in a sort of abstract, meandering fashion. He hasn’t quite worked through the whole thing yet, so after the bridge and chorus, he just sings the second verse again, until he runs out of words and the song peters out.

Sanha’s hand has found his sometime during the song, and he lets their fingers lace together loosely.

“I want to sing that next time,” Sanha sighs absently, the unease in his voice more or less gone. He sounds more comfortable now, and it seems the medicine and Jinwoo’s gentle wet toweling have done him good. But Jinwoo doesn’t want to agitate him again by getting up to leave, so he doesn’t. Instead he rinses the towel and replaces it again before slipping his hand back into Sanha’s, lightly stroking with his thumb.

“You will one day,” Jinwoo agrees. He doesn’t tell Sanha that the song exists for that reason alone.

They slip into silence again, but this time it’s a restful one. Jinwoo listens as Sanha’s breathing evens out into the peaceful rhythm of slumber, and even then he’s loath to remove his hand from Sanha’s grasp. But he knows if he stays til daybreak his back is going to suffer for it, and it won’t do for an invalid’s caretaker to also become bedridden. So he lets himself linger just a while longer, looking at Sanha’s profile outlined in moonlight, his upturned nose and rose-petal lips free from the grimace of pain they wore not so long ago.

The next day, Sanha seems very much revitalized, and he’s able to leave his bed and spend an hour or two watching cartoons on the tv in the hall. Jinwoo flits around like a concerned bumblebee, bringing water and sliced fruits without being asked, feeling oddly protective of him (more than usual, anyway) for some reason. It’s as if he was the vulnerable one last night, not Sanha, and he’d laid his soul bare with the unfinished song he sang.

Sanha, thankfully, does not ask more about the song for now. He’s familiar enough with Jinwoo’s creative process to know that Jinwoo’s going to have to mull over it another couple of months and what he’d heard of it last night was a rare and unexpected gift. So instead he’s appreciative and affectionate, made muzzy but sweet from the lingering flu. His sunny countenance begins to return, though without the usual snarky-playful bite that he’s known for, and every so often he bestows upon Jinwoo a dopey smile.

It’s nice, playing at domesticity like this. As if they don’t have lives that entail constant public attention and command more working hours than any regular person’s should. It’s nice cooking a pot of rice porridge for two and laying out four different types of  _ banchan _ from little tupperwares in the fridge. It’s nice sitting on the couch and leaning into each other, feeling Sanha’s solid, comforting weight pressing into his shoulder. Sanha rests his head on top of Jinwoo’s because he’s just that tall, and Jinwoo feels a warmth bloom in his stomach that rises and fills his entire chest.

On the last day of their break, Sanha kisses him.

By now, Sanha’s feeling much better. The sore throat and fever are gone, and though he’s still not quite back to his snarky and rambunctious self, Jinwoo's dedicated care has put the light back into his eyes in record time. Jinwoo is truly gratified to see their youngest has recovered well -  _ it’s just the flu _ , he keeps telling himself, but he feels responsible for Sanha’s wellbeing. And not just because Sanha caught it from him.

They’re sprawled out in Jinwoo’s room over Jinwoo and Bin’s beds, both sort of doing their own thing in each other’s company. Sanha’s focused on a mobile game and it pings and trills as he breezes through the levels at top speed. Jinwoo has his phone out too but with a google doc open to some lyrics he’s been puzzling through, though it’s very pointedly not the lyrics to the song from the other day.

If he’s honest, he’s not sure if he’s ever going to be ready to talk about that song. Jinwoo imagines releasing it in an album years in the future and just laughing it off,  _ oh you know inspiration just hit me one night at 2:45 am _ , and wondering if Sanha will remember that night through the distorted lenses of a high fever. What’s between them now is comfortable, and he’s warm and content in the relative safety of this ambiguous unspoken thing. But he’s also terrified of what it could turn into, and at the same time deathly afraid of letting the opportunity pass him by. And as the leader he feels an extra sense of responsibility perched on his shoulder and whispering in his ear, but by this point he can’t tell if it’s an angel or a demon.

He thinks about Bin and Dongmin, and how they’d been obliviously dancing around each other for the longest time before finally becoming what they are now. Dongmin always finds his way to Bin’s side like a magnet, and Bin looks at Dongmin like he’s hung the moon in the sky, and they’re happy. He thinks about how it would be nice to have something like that of his very own. Of course they’re public figures and any sort of relationship would have to be hidden  _ so _ carefully, but he also thinks Bin’s right - to find someone like this right by your side might be one’s greatest happiness after all.

It’s this fog of hazy contemplation from which he emerges to an insistent poking at his side. “Jinwoo hyuuuuung.” He realises that Sanha has been calling out different renditions of his name for perhaps the last minute.

“Yes,” he says sheepishly, tossing his phone onto the bed beside him.

“Those lyrics must be difficult,” Sanha begins casually, propping himself up on his elbows to look Jinwoo shrewdly in the eye.

“Oh… you know. They’ll come to me when they want to,” Jinwoo muses, trying to wave the topic away. He does, however, meet Sanha’s gaze. Looking away would just be too obvious.

Sanha tilts his head. His eyes are searching, like he’s got questions and the answers are inside Jinwoo’s brain. (Though he guesses that’s probably the case. Jinwoo just doesn’t want to know what the questions are.)

“Do you wanna go get takeout for dinner?” Jinwoo blurts out, in an attempt to change the subject.

He’s silenced by Sanha’s cherry blossom lips.

The kiss is fleeting, gone as quickly as it’s come. Jinwoo’s mind struggles to comprehend what’s just happened, his thoughts coming painfully slow, as if they’re moving through maple syrup. Sanha looks at him again and a sliver of doubt passes behind his eyes, his plush lower lip caught between his teeth.

Jinwoo’s thoughts are suddenly very much not slow at all.

This time it’s him who leans forward and kisses Sanha, a large hand coming up to cradle the back of his head. It’s gentle and sweet, and unexpectedly cleansing. As if the worry he’s been shutting away for longer than he can care to recall is being wiped away by the brush of Sanha’s eyelashes against his cheekbones. He can feel Sanha smiling against his lips.

“You’re dumb, Jinjin hyung,” Sanha says when they pull apart. But he’s got an impertinent smile on, and Jinwoo’s heart thumps when he adds, “And I _want_ to come to you,  _ right now _ .”

They call for delivery instead.

\---

“Your song came out perfect,” Sanha says smugly, sipping on Jinwoo’s ice latte.

Jinwoo preens. He’s usually very humble and they’re all familiar with it, but he’ll allow himself this moment to bask in the success of his creation. It’s fully written, composed and produced by him, but his favorite part about it is probably the fact that he’s written it into a duet. For him and Sanha.

“Now you compliment me,” Sanha demands, pulling a pout.

Jinwoo relents without complaint. “It was perfect because you were in it,” he says soothingly, reaching out to smooth down a stubborn cowlick at the back of Sanha’s head. Sanha presses into his touch with a tiny satisfied smile, his own hands bunched into little balls on the kitchen table like a kitten being petted.

“Get a room,” Bin hollers from the other side of the hall. He’s on the couch with Dongmin watching baseball on tv with their legs tangled like octopuses in love, so Jinwoo thinks he’s in no position to talk.

“You get a room,” Jinwoo snipes back, even as Sanha looks up at him with a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Jinwoo hyuuunnng~” he begins, leaning over to smush his cheek up against Jinwoo’s. “I looooove you so muuuuuuch,” Sanha continues, pressing big theatrical kisses across his face. “I am the brightest star in your endless skyyyyyy.”

“You should write the lyrics, not me,” Jinwoo grins, managing to catch Sanha’s lips with his own as they pass by.

From the hallway, Myungjun gags on his way out to meet Minhyuk for extra dance practice.

“Dude I thought Binu was bad until you guys happened!!!”

Bin cackles like a hyena from the couch until Dongmin tries to smother him with a cushion. “If you make me miss the rest of this inning I’m going to set you on fire,” he says threateningly, before putting his entire body weight on Bin to make him shut up.

Deciding he’s had enough of the peanut gallery, Sanha gets up from the kitchen table and pulls Jinwoo by the wrist along the hall to Jinwoo’s room, ignoring the cat calls coming from under the cushion (under Dongmin). There, he picks up his guitar (which has found its new home in the corner near Jinwoo and Bin’s closet) and settles down on Jinwoo’s bed as if it were his own, propped up against the wall and with one ankle comfortably hooked over the other.

“Sing for me,” he says simply, strumming the first chord of their song.

Jinwoo smiles and does so.

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday lir :') you thought i was gonna draw, hehehe!!
> 
> also @ other readers i know it's quite a sensitive time to be writing illnesses right now so i wrote it as mildly as possible, please don't slap me i just wanted to write hxc and it was the easiest thing i could think of. :')


End file.
